Syriac Language

Syriac, the self-designations of which are suryāyā,
ārāmāyā, and urhāyā, is a
dialect of the Aramaic language
branch, which is itself a member of the larger Semitic language family.
Syriac is generally grouped in the late Aramaic period (ca. 200–1200)
despite the fact that it is attested from the 1st cent. AD to the present.
Though previously considered an East-Aramaic dialect, some evidence suggests
that Syriac should be classified as a separate branch of late Aramaic that
is distinct both from East-Aramaic, which includes Mandaic and Jewish
Babylonian Aramaic, and from West-Aramaic, which includes Christian Palestinian Aramaic, Samaritan Aramaic, and Jewish
Palestinian Aramaic. In comparison to other late Aramaic dialects, Syriac
preserves many features of earlier ‘Standard Literary Aramaic’.

Syriac is by far the best documented Aramaic dialect. Based on the
designation urhāyā ‘(the language) of Edessa’, it is
likely that Syriac originated in or around Edessa. As the
primary language of Syriac Christianity, it spread over much of Mesopotamia
and Syria reaching as far as Ethiopia, India, and Central Asia. Syriac is
first found in non-Christian tomb inscriptions that
date from the 1st to the 3rd cent. These inscriptions display a number of
archaic features — some of which also occur in early mss. — that were lost
in the standardization of classical Syriac. The majority of Syriac
literature stems from the Christian communities that emerged in Mesopotamia
and Northern Syria starting in the 2nd cent. AD. The ‘Golden Age’ of Syriac
spanned from the 4th to the 7th cent. and produced a considerable corpus of
original prose and poetry as well as translations from Greek. After the
Islamic conquests in the 7th cent., Syriac was gradually replaced by Arabic
though it lived on for several centuries and even witnessed a brief
renaissance in the 12th and 13th cent. (see Syriac
Renaissance). Alongside the numerous Neo-Aramaic dialects (see
Aramaic, Sureth, Ṭuroyo), classical
Syriac still functions today as a liturgical and literary language for Syr.
Christians both in the Middle East and the worldwide diaspora (see Kthobonoyo
Syriac). In addition to the large surviving literary corpus
related to Syriac Christianity, Syriac is attested in incantation bowls,
amulets, inscriptions, and documentary texts written on papyrus and parchment (for the latter, see Old
Syriac Documents).

After the Christological controversies in the 5th and 6th cent., Syriac split
into an E.-Syr. and W.-Syr. tradition. The differences between these
traditions appear primarily in script and phonology.
While the Esṭrangela script continued in restricted use in both traditions,
the W.-Syr. tradition adopted Serṭo as its primary script, and the E.-Syr.
tradition developed a new script based on Esṭrangela. In phonology, the
E.-Syr. tradition employs a seven vowel system, which more closely reflects
earlier stages of Aramaic. In the W.-Syr. tradition, however, several vowel
changes occurred, e.g., the shifts of *ā to o, *ē to i, and *o to u.

Like all Aramaic dialects, Syriac throughout its long history has been in
contact with other languages. In addition to inheriting a number of Akkadian
and Persian loanwords from earlier periods of Aramaic, Syriac borrowed
lexemes from Middle Persian, Hebrew, and — later in its history — Arabic.
The language that had the most significant impact on Syriac, however, is
Greek. Greek influence is found in texts from the earliest period, such as
the ‘Book of the Laws of the Countries’ (see Bardaiṣan) and
the Odes of Solomon, and reached its apex in the 5th through 7th
cent. when the translation movements were in progress (see Greek, Syriac translations from). This close contact with Greek
had an effect on Syriac not only in its vocabulary where many Greek
loanwords are found, but also in syntax and even morphology.

Syriac has enjoyed a long tradition of academic study in Syriac-speaking
communities. Yaʿqub of Edessa (d. 708) is traditionally considered the first author of a
Syriac grammar. Although this work does not survive in its entirety,
portions of it were incorporated into the so-called Syriac Masora (mašlmānutā). This important compilation also contains
vocalized texts of the OT, NT, and patristic authors, which serve as a rich
source of philological and grammatical material. As is the case with so many
of the sciences in Syriac, the grammatical tradition was codified by the
polymath Bar ʿEbroyo (d. 1286), who wrote both a
small metrical grammar and a much larger opus entitled ‘The Book of
Splendors’ (ktobo d-ṣemḥe). Syriac-speaking
communities also produced works on lexicography
, the
most well-known of which are the Syriac-Arabic dictionaries of Bar ʿAli (second half of the 9th cent.) and of Bar Bahlul (fl. 10th cent.).

The study of Syriac in the West, which began in the 16th cent., culminated at
the turn of the 20th cent. with the publication of the grammar of Th. Nöldeke (1880; 2nd ed. 1898; ET in 1904) and the
lexica of R. Payne Smith (1879–1901), C. Brockelmann (1895; 2nd ed. 1928; ET in 2009 by
Sokoloff), and T. Audo (1897),
all of which remain standard reference works today. In addition to the
grammar of Nöldeke, detailed grammars of Syriac are available in Arayathinal
(1957–9) and, more recently, Muraoka (2005). The most common Syriac
dictionary for students is J. Payne Smith (1903); M. Sokoloff (2009) has also recently
provided an English translation (with correction, expansion, and update) of
Brockelmann’s Lexicon. Elementary grammars of Syriac
include Coakley (2002), Healey (2005), and Thackston (1999). Useful bibliographies for the study of the Syriac language can be found
in Albert (1993), Muraoka (2005), and Brock (2006).